Comment Is Free: 16
people whose comments may be completely inaccurate, offensive or without foundation in fact. It
arguably undermines the work of professional journalists by placing the words of people who have
no training or professional responsibility alongside, or even on a par with, those who do,” said an
online journalist, adding contributors “are often anonymous and therefore totally unaccountable.”
Respondents linked UGC to values of universal free speech – “letting people have their
voice heard without intimidation,” as an online editor said -- and strengthened relationships. “We’re
no longer writing for people, but having a conversation with them. And, in some cases, we’re
talking to people who have far more specialised knowledge than we do -- we can learn from them,”
a print editor wrote. “The relationship is more balanced than ever before.” Some tied UGC to what
they felt the paper stood for. “It is a challenge to extend the Guardian's values and ethics,” an online
editor wrote, “which on many counts we are achieving successfully and others not.”
Guardian journalists said issues related to UGC were being addressed mainly through
moderation designed to ensure comments are in line with published “community standards.” The
optimal approach was more elusive. An online editor suggested “direct communication with users”
as the best way to address the issue but added that it is “only practical on the small scale”; another
recommended “trusting and considering common sense of readers.” An online respondent who
works closely with UGC urged finding ways to bridge the “cultural differences” between journalists
and users. She recommended increasing journalists’ ability to frame their own input in a way that
encourages positive reader response and “developing ways of allowing users to add more value to
debate, rather than giving them a space that interpolates them as ‘inferior’ (or junior) journalists.”
Ethical components (RQ1): This section draws on interview transcript analysis to consider
the three segments of our first research question in turn. As the questionnaire data suggest, there is
considerable overlap, and few journalists conceptualized these as distinct normative constructs.
They are treated separately here mainly in the interests of a coherent presentation of the findings.
Convention